Page 645 - The Dream Job, Part 6

Author Notes:

Several people have vaguely pointed out that the Nightmare Moon issue of the FIENDship is Magic run has a thing or two to say about her time on the moon and a possible origin of the nightmare forces. It's not an explicitly direct tie-in, but it does leave just enough room to mentally draw a connection.

People have also discussed treating it as multiple canons, or using the multiple universes theory. Personally, and this is just me weighing in with my own opinion... I hate the multiple universes theory. I like assuming that, in any given fiction, the one we have is the one we got. My primary trade is in crossovers, which means I love to figure out how different weird things fit together. Used as a writing device within one piece of fiction, I feel like establishing infinite alternate universes diminishes that fun a lot.

Ditto. Most of the time I just don't care for the art style that much, the rest of the time it's what I hear about the rather wildly fluctuating quality of the writing from a friend of mine who does read them.

Overall, I just don't consider anything in the comics to be official show canon unless it's explicitly stated to be. More of a 'fuzzy' canon like the bajillion or so Star Trek novels.

I swear I remember somebody in a position of authority saying that the comics are a parallel universe that began to diverge slightly after "A Canterlot Wedding", but I can never find the reference for that.

Still, that's what I go by: anything that happens in the present in the comics is something that could have happened in the show, but maybe didn't, and vice versa; anything that happened in the past applies to both universes. It's not like you can put it all in one universe at this point; there are some direct contradictions.

This is completely new territory to me as well, but then again, I'm a newbie to the MLP-verse as a whole. Only just finished season 2 of FiM and started on season 3 this past weekend, so yeah, I'm rather well behind all the rest of you :/ Some of what's happening in this comic is going over my head at the moment.

That said, I do rather like the idea of taking the MLP-verse in different directions. I can see where @Newbiespud is coming from regarding wanting to think of everything as one cohesive universe, even if it requires doing some mental contortions. Though I do like Digo's term "soft canon".

I've read some of them. When the series first came out I read it as a regular thing, but as Crow mentioned the writing quality does fluctuate a lot, plus I ran into the problem a lot of comics have these days where the story moves too slow; you get too little story over too many issues.

So after the second story arc I stopped reading it regularly and instead I'll buy the issues every once in a while if the cover catches my attention and the story arc looks like it might be worth investing in.

Notably, the Friends Forever issue with Luna and Discord that came out this week was good. There was one bit in it I found especially amusing.

I take the comics with the same amount of salt as I take G1; it's useful for filling in gaps in FiM, but a lot of it just doesn't work.

It's also harder to reconcile someone who's out-of-character in the comics, since it lasts for a month instead of a quick faux pas in the show. Usually, it's Twilight standing around helplessly when we all know she has a spell for that.

Acting out of character is the issue I have with some fanfics. I've read some that are otherwise very good except that their premise is based on a character acting very much unlike what I expected. My willing suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

I started reading the comics, but ended up losing interest in them partway through the mirror world arc, it just got to the point where I never actually bothered to take the time to continue reading them.

As for canon, iirc the official stance is that the show is canon for the comics, but not the other way round, but you can of course decide for yourself what you want to consider canon or not. For me personally, I don't really think of them as more than officially-endorsed fanfiction in terms of canon - can hold some interesting ideas, but holding no real bearing on the show itself, but that's just my view.

I've read a few of the comics from the main line, a couple other ones. I love the art on the main arcs, close to canon, but not too close that it is just clips of the show. Excellent expressions, it really takes advantage of the new medium. The backgrounds are great, as well. Each page is a new iSpy or Wheres Waldo?. That being said, I have only bought three (the first two of the main line and a Pinkie Pie one since a local artist did the cover.). The pacing is terrible if you actually want to buy it hot and wait for new issues, and hunting for back issues is a pain in the ass and I hate it. Christ I've been looking for this one Spider Man comic I read online for months now, I liked it enough to buy it but now its gone... I highly recommend reading them, and buy them if you like them (and can freaking FIND the things--!)

I've just been reading them online, up to partway through that magnificent Fringe story arch, where my comic source crapped out and I have yet to check if they have it again. Thanks for asking about this, I've just started trying to read it again.

My favorite background detail was in the Fringe arch on this wall of conspiracy there was a paper that said-I could only just make it out-"If you are reading this, you may be over analyzing this comic book--"

It's not explicit, no, but (and I could be wrong) I don't think there's anything in the Nightmare Rarity arc that blatantly contradicts the backstory put forth by FIENDship is Magic (especially since Luna, in her shame, isn't exactly forthcoming about a lot of the details). I'd have to dig out and reread those issues, though.

This page does remind me of an annoying thing some GMs do-- reintroduce old characters you had as some antagonist NPC without your permission. It's like, a bit of a slap to me if they don't ask first before changing their personality like that.

One time I did use someone's older dead character from a D&D game, but I asked first. And the character went evil because he died in a really terrible way that the party could be blamed for. Essentially he's back from the dead for revenge. The player said it was okay with some caveats.

Yeah. A GM did that to me too. Although it was more "borrowed from another campaign". He made it a boss too that nearly TPK'd us. Our tankiest tank got one-shotted...

But yeah. I got over it pretty quickly. In the end it didn't really matter too much since he made it fun. After all, it's like all the fanfics and re-interpretations (or outright transformation of characters). I'll take pride in the fact my characters are so memorable the GM feels compelled to reuse them. :P

@ Raxon: No, it never did occur to me at the time. But the more I think about it, the more I end up liking that idea.

Between today's comic and Raxon's theory, though, I'm starting to wonder if one of my characters will end up going through this kind of transformation. Astral Blaze is blamed by his fellow stable ponies for creating a virus that mutates ponies in horrible abominations that Discord would be proud of. It also doesn't help that last session he unintentionally caused the virus to spread to other parts of the stable. Now he's starting to hear a voice in his head that doesn't quite belong to him that seems genuinely pleased with all the chaos he keeps causing. Considering that he desperately wants to cure the virus, I get the feeling we have the makings of a Nightmare Moon-esque scenario here.

That or it's another manifestation of his very mild insanity. This is a character who has the Wild Wasteland trait and believes a certain pink party pony is secretly stalking him while no one is looking. So it could go either way, really.

Huh... whereas I'm running a campaign completely revolving around the multiverse theory... and its a pretty big hit with my players, too. Having so many places to go and people to see opens up tons of material to work with. It may help that I'm doing a continual saga, rather than trying to block things off. But when you have a player who could give Discord a run for his money in the random department, its far easier to manage a continual story anyway. Instead of rails, I let my players speedboat around the lake, and have them hit check points here and there instead.

I actually wanted to read the comics but not spend $15-$20 on one and be done with it in a minute as I'm a very fast reader. Plus with so many out there I have no idea which one is the first one to read. I hate picking up a series only to find out that I'm on book 4 or something. So unless I can read them online and know which one to start at, I'm just keeping the mindset of they are stories in their own world and not canon to the show. Since it was never mentioned in the show about Rarity becoming a nightmare.

Not to mention easy to find, and easy to acquire! Heck after a new issue comes out they even drop down in price! Usually... And for athose who don't feel like they have the time to sit and read the comic, they have an app that you can download to! I have all the comics so far and I have to say that I enjoy them for the most part. Also I like to think of them as canon. I think there may have even been a reference to one of them in the show once but I can't remember which one...

Actually, "Social Justice Warrior" is a term used to describe particularly thin-skinned people who rally against the human right to speak one's mind, and who engage in relentless harassment of anyone who does not subscribe to an impossibly stringent code of saying absolutely nothing to offend anyone ever.

Not exactly true. Generally, those who can accurately be described by that pejorative tend to take a pseudo-Marxist view of society in that they divide society into neatly-defined "Oppressor"/"Oppressed" categories based on race, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera (generally ignoring wealth, social class, national/geographical context, or individuals' personal circumstances). Anyone who falls into the "Oppressor" category can be mocked, harassed, and terrorized with impunity, while those who fall into the "Oppressed" class are to be held up as blameless victims who can do no wrong... unless a certain member of the "Oppressed" disagrees with any part of the narratives or agendas put forth, in which case they can and should mocked, harassed, and terrorized in equal (if not greater) measure. Basically, they're equally intolerant a-holes who get away with it by slapping a "progressive" label on themselves and calling everyone else bigots; they only care about offense when they're the ones offended.

That said, there are a depressingly large number of people on the anti-SJW side who take it too far and become the mirror image of their opposition. He Who Fights Monsters, and all that...